We have a very friendly stray cat in the house named Ming Ming. While doing our once a year drinking binge slash photography session, Elber brought along his Nikon external flash which we used to do an impromptu portrait take for the cat.
Click on the image for the full view.
The result was absolutely amazing. One the hardest aspects of photographing animals is getting them to stay still – and stay uninterested with your photography equipment that they won’t care less about being shot. Good thing the cat was patient enough to sit through the whole thing.
We did something different here. Elber brought along his home made diffuser, very similar to the DIY FinnBounce and Smelfen for the 350D. But instead of bouncing light, it stopped it. But since the internal flash still fires, it triggers the Nikon slave (apologies, I forgot the model) allowing us to flash from anywhere. His home-made device is made of film strip bunched together and taped with masking tape which is inserted above the lens. I then uploaded the image to iPhoto and with a click of a button, converted to B&W.
So that is how we achieved this image. I was using my favorite prime lens for this. You can check out the full EXIF data here.
When shooting animals – especially cats, it is advisable to try to get the whiskers and eyes as your focal point.
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